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Category: Wine Fair or Tasting Event

Montecucco Historical Tasting In 1998, a small appellation for Sangiovese-based wines was carved from the Maremma. Forged on the slopes of Mount Amiata, the extinct volcano that is also the hallmark and birthright of Montalcino, Montecucco DOC celebrates 20 years of appellation status this year. The elevation of Montecucco Sangiovese to DOCG, now the calling card of Montecucco, was granted […]

Maremma, Tuscany’s Underestimated Corner Driving south from Siena, I enjoyed experiencing the landscape and climate of Tuscany undergo nuanced changes. The vegetation became more spaced, the fields wider. The hills became more rolling. It was palpably warmer. Below the vines, the grains and the cypress trees the soils, which I obviously was not able to […]

Utiel-Requena: Bobal Steps out of the Shadow of Bulk Wine The scene: southeast Spain, near to the Mediterranean A scant 70 kilometres (as the crow flies) from the heaving beaches and ancient attractions of València lies the comparatively quiet hinterland home of Utiel-Requena, one of Spain’s Denominación de Origen (DO) wine areas. You may not […]

What is Montecucco? We are in the warm south of Tuscany. Here, sandwiched between two well-known denominations specialising in Sangiovese, you will discover a third – much newer and very much less well-known – that benefits from similar advantages to its well-heeled neighbours, and which is producing some very characteristic, Sangiovese-based wines of high quality. […]

Anteprima Amarone 50° – Presentation of the 2014 Vintage It was a tough year, 2014, and not only in Valpolicella. Nearly every wine region in Europe had difficulties. Simpler wines requiring no long ageing before release have already long since moved on to succeeding vintages, including the universally-acclaimed 2015, the challenging but interesting 2016 – […]

Can Amarone della Valpolicella age? It isn’t as strange a question as it might seem. Not all wines age well, and most of the Amarone more than ten years old that I have tried have been more tired than lively. Nevertheless, over the past 70 years Amarone has rightly secured a place as one of […]

Barolo at its best: the epic tasting event Nebbiolo is the name of the grape responsible, in the right hands and conditions, for some of Italy’s – and the world’s – greatest red wines. Although planted in many places around the globe, nowhere else – so far – does it reach the heights to which […]

The Croatian Wine Experience on Swiss Soil It has been quite a while since I had an experience like the one I was permitted last week. As a busy wine professional who travels a great deal, it isn’t often that I get to try a number of wines from a region that is completely new […]

Switzerland has it good with Paul Liversedge MW and his “Real Wines” Online Wine Shop Isn’t it the dream of most wine lovers to open their own wine shop, stocked with the best and most interesting bottles from the producers and regions that represent their own tastes? Unfortunately, unless they are also wealthy and not […]

Grandi Marchi – Welcome to the Pantheon No, I’m not talking about the gorgeous temple-turned-church in Rome. But just as the Pantheon of Rome is a church dedicated to “all the Gods”, so is the “Grandi Marchi” a kind of reference to many of the great wines of Italy. Please note: NOT all of them […]